Avian-American
by Kitsune-242
Summary: Shawn Spencer has a much bigger secret than just the truth of his psychic abilities, a secret that he's kept under wraps for years. But now, with the appearance of wolf-men in Santa Barbara's forests, the truth about Shawn and his identity may not remain a secret for much longer. Five-Shot - In other words, a one-shot that got out of control by a lot. Ch 6 - A/N
1. Part I

Disclaimer: I don't own Psych, nor Maximum Ride. ...I don't know why I'm writing this. Just like the Danny Phantom fanfic that I've been wanting to write for, like, forever! ...heh heh..."Phanfic." If nobody's used that before I claim it! "TM" it and whatnot. If someone's used it before, I still claim it. Unless it's been "TM"d. Then I mentally claim it.

Either way, you guys should/might know the drill. **One-shot until I decide otherwise. **I PLAN on this becoming a full-length fanfic, but either I'll update it rarely, or I won't until I finish another story. Hell, I may NEVER update this again. Though I probably will.

...I can't believe I'm doing this. XD

**BACKGROUND! And yes, this is important: **For "Psych," I feel like this would take place sometime around season four or five. Probably five, actually, with a select few episodes ignored. If it's important, I'll say which episodes to ignore later. For Maximum Ride, this takes place AFTER the books. But you know what? _Ignore the last four books. _**Ignore "Max," "Fang," "Angel," and "Evermore," **or whatever the last book was called. Why? Because I haven't read "Angel" or "Evermore," so I can't accurately have the details. Plus, it'll probably screw with the plot of this fic.

And no, I don't plan on reading "Angel" or "Evermore," even though I finished reading "Fang," like, three years ago.

P.S. - There _may _be references to happenings in season six or whatever. Why? Because I like them. *stares at title* ...GRRRRRR.

**_Avian-American_**

_A Psych/Maximum Ride Five-shot_

_Part 1_

"I'm seeing...green...no, red! No, red _and _green! And...brown! Red, brown, and green, all cushioned between two pillows of white goodness!" A man of average height with blue-green eyes pulled his right hand away from his temple, flashing the man that was pointedly glaring at him a brilliant smile. "Does this mean anything to you, Lassie?"

The other man just kept glowering, tapping his pen against his desk in a steady rhythm. _Tap tap tap tap tap..._

"...pain, so much pain, Lassie!" The average-height man wailed suddenly, flinging himself into the pole next to "Lassie's" desk. "Mashing, grinding, darkness! Lassie, the red-brown-green-cushioned thing is _gone! DEAD!" _

_Taptaptaptaptaptaptap..._

"Lassie, this must be familiar to you! I _sense _it!"

"No, Spencer, what you "_sense" _is my damn _sandwich_. In your _stomach._ Remember, the one you _ate?_"

Shawn Spencer, "official" psychic of the Santa Barbara Police Department, and self-proclaimed "winner of the best hair" award, bounced excitedly on his heels. "And it was delicious! Thank you, Lassie!" The darker-haired man's eye twitched. His grip on the pen tightened.

It snapped in two, spilling ink all over his desk, hand, shirt sleeve, and about fifteen different reports he was working on.

"Spencer!" He snapped.

Shawn yelped, spinning around and darting through the SBPD with a fuming Head Detective hot on his heels, screaming for his girlfriend to come to the rescue.

There, at the coffee maker! His salvation! All five-foot-six, one-hundred-ten pounds of her.

"JULES!" Shawn ducked behind her, the effect of "hiding" ruined by how half of his head was visible above the woman's own. "HIDE ME!"

Juliet O'Hara, Junior Detective of the SBPD, took one look at the charging form of Carlton Lassiter - who looked much akin to a raging bull - and then promptly stepped out of the way.

"Deal with your own problems." She called over her shoulder, strolling leisurely away with her fresh cup of strange-tasting department-coffee, leaving her boyfriend sputtering behind her, frozen in his tracks. "If your fingers aren't too broken, don't forget to TiVo "The Voice.""

Shawn squeaked, diving underneath the table that held the coffee maker and box of donuts. Right before Lassiter could wrap his hands around Shawn's throat and throttle the life out of him, Chief Karen Vick came, miraculously, to Shawn's rescue.

"Detective Lassiter! Detective O'Hara! My office, now!" She shouted into the hustle and bustle of the police department. Shawn rocketed out from his hiding place, latching around her waist.

"CHIEF! You saved my life! I owe you, big time!" He detached himself for a moment. "Marry me?" He returned to hugging her, giving her abdomen a bear-hug.

"Mr. Spencer, if you don't let go of me this instant, then I will let Detective Lassiter do whatever he was about to do. Better yet, I'll shoot you myself." She was joking. Hopefully. But either way, Shawn released her and bounced off, probably to go bother someone else in his quest to relieve his boredom.

Much of the PD dreaded the days that Burton Guster was on a business trip.

Don't take them wrong, they loved the hyperactive psychic. But sometimes - especially in times when it was _really _busy - his four-year-old mentality got on peoples nerves. Like right now, for example.

Huffing a breath, Lassiter and Juliet followed Vick back into her office, where she quickly took her seat at her desk, her two best Detectives standing in a strange version of "at attention" in front of her.

"As you may know," She began in her usual exasperated-ish tone. "there have been a string of...strange...murders lately. They were mostly confined to the forests near the city, but recently the victims have been found closer and closer to the city. The most recent one..." She paused to reach into her desk, and toss a manilla folder onto its surface. An image was paper-clipped to the front; a picture of a man laying face-down on pavement, his back torn completely open, with bits of the pavement showing through his torso. "...was found _inside _the city. The murderer is no longer just killing wayward hikers, but random people seen on the street."

Lassiter reached down to pick up the file to flick through, but there was a strange lack of a manilla folder when his searching fingers reached the desk. "What the..." He looked down, shuffling papers out of the way in search of the suddenly-missing folder.

"Ew, that's nasty." Lassiter and Juliet spun around, while Vick just pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

Shawn was sitting in one of the armchairs in the back corner of the room, his face twisted up in a distasteful grimace as he turned the picture of the mauled man every which way, holding it up to the light as if to search for some type of a hidden image. "Yep, it's official." A tense silence filled the room; even if he didn't believe that Shawn was psychic, Lassiter still couldn't deny that Shawn brought results. "...this man has been _murdered!" _

...then again, he could always still _shoot _the man.

Shawn threw the picture onto the floor, shooting to his feet. His right hand flew up to its customary position near his left temple, his fingers slightly splayed as he closed his eyes with flourish. He hummer, rocking forward and back slightly.

"I see teeth!" He barked so loudly and suddenly, that the three other occupants in the room jumped, their hearts hammering a bit faster for a moment. "No, not teeth! Fangs! Ripping, tearing fangs! And claws! Wicked, sharp claws!" Shawn's eyes snapped open, his face lightning up. "He was killed by a _fluffy!"_

"An animal, you mean?" Vick asked slowly. Shawn nodded his head rapidly, a pleased look on his face. Lassiter, however, snorted.

"Keep your wild grabs to yourself, Spencer, we already know it's a man." Retrieving the file from where Shawn had tossed it onto the ground, he flipped through its contents, before pulling out the picture that he himself had added to the ever-growing file. He presented it to Shawn, not even bothering to hide his smug grin. "View it and weep."

It was a very grainy image, one that no computer could probably enhance. Hell, it probably already_ was _enhanced. The image itself was a strange form of sepia, browns and tans blending together to create a mass of nothing. Almost nothing could be defined from the image, except for a few trees, and one other thing; a man.

At least, it _looked _like a man, though it very well could have been another tree. He - or she? - was tall and thin, and...well, that was pretty much all that could be discerned from the photo.

"Who took this picture? Nessie?" Shawn asked, missing the looks of confusion he got; not that he would care, anyway, considering only _he _understood half the things he said, anyway. "And this isn't a man! It could just as easily be a tree! Or Slenderman!"

"Hop into the real world for twenty seconds, would you?" Lassiter demanded, swiping the picture back out of Shawn's hands. "It was a human that killed these people, not an animal. Stop trying to finagle your way onto this case!" As the taller detective spun around to return to his spot - and probably ask (more like a poorly-veiled demand) Vick to kick Shawn out of the room - something slipped loose from the file.

It was another picture, this one slightly less blurry, printed on a square of card-stock. Once again the background was trees, but that wasn't what caught Shawn's attention.

With speed and skill that pretty much nobody knew Shawn possessed, he snatched the picture out of the air before it had fallen more than a few inches, flipping it around to stare at the picture he had only glimpsed.

As soon as he saw the focus of the image, he paled. His hands began to shake, and his eyes flew wide as he broke out into a cold sweat. "W-when was this taken?" He asked. His voice was so quiet, so soft, that the three almost didn't hear him, but the quiver in his voice_ definitely _caught his attention. After all, Shawn Spencer rarely _ever _shut up, let alone speak quietly.

"Wha-" Lassiter began to turn to confiscate the image from Shawn, but the shorter man beat him to it; he was at Lassiter's side in an instant, twisting his fist up in the fabric of the front of Lassiter's shirt. The Irish man gave an indignant shout at the sudden contact, a protest that Juliet and Vick quickly mimicked as Vick rose out of her chair.

"When. Was. This. Taken?" Shawn repeated, his voice deadly low, the stutter no longer present as he glared at Lassiter, actually _glared_. Shawn _never _glared.

"Five days ago, Spencer. What's your glitch?" The older man demanded.

"Where?" Shawn asked, his voice equally as stern, completely ignoring Lassiter's question, and the reattempts by Juliet and Vick.

"In the forest, near where Becky Tangent's body was found."

Shawn was suddenly sweeping out of the room, swiftly making his way out of the office, down the hall, and then out of the police department. Not a few seconds later, the sound of his motorcycle revving to life and peeling out of the parking lot reached the office.

The image that had caused the drastic change in Shawn's behavior rested on the floor where it had fallen as he had left, laying face-down. Juliet, being the first to notice it, picked it up and flipped it over.

Standing in front of the trees was a blurry figure. A blurry figure that looked like a wolfish creature that stood on hind legs, with glowing eyes and wickedly-long claws.

The picture was a mystery to the department. Nobody could make heads nor tails of it; it had just been an photo that a hiker had taken nearly a week ago in the forest. The hiker hadn't even noticed that there was something odd in the photo until he had been searching through them later. The department had given up on identifying it, and had just settled for calling it either a man dressed up, or just a collection of very convenient trees.

So what had set Shawn off so drastically?

**_:::With Shawn:::_**

His dad hated it when he used his cell phone while on his motorcycle, for a number of reasons. For one thing, he'd only be using one hand to drive the vehicle down the road. Another thing was that he wouldn't be wearing his helmet. But while Shawn acted like a buffoon, he wasn't an idiot. He knew when something was an emergency enough to do something stupid.

He waited as the other line rang. Once. Twice. Thrice.

Whining to himself, he hung up and redialed. He waited.

_Brrrr...Brrrr...Brrr-_

_"What do you want, Shawn?"_ An annoyed voice asked tiredly on the other line.

"Code: Pink Pearl!" Shawn blurted into the phone as a response. The other line went silent.

_"...what?" _

"Pink Pearl, man, Pink Pearl! _Pink. Pearl."_ He stressed the words repeatedly. Again, the other line went silent. Then:

_"Oh."_ A pause. "Oh."Another pause. _"Oh _shit."

"Yeah." Shawn agreed, his voice taking on a rarely-used, solemn tone. He readjusted his grip on his iPhone. His dad would _never _let him hear the end of it if he dropped it on the highway.

Again.

_"Are you positive?" _The voice on the other line - Burton Guster, Pharmaceutical Representative and "Psych" private investigator - asked, sounding urgent. _"Are you _absolutely _positive? Like, 100% positive?" _

"Dude, I know what I saw. Or, sorta saw. Well, it was a blurry photograph, but the point still stands! I _know what I saw. _A Pink Pearl."

_"Well...what do we do?" _Gus asked after a moment of silence between the two.

"We find a buncha number two pencils and stab the crap out of them!" Shawn replied forcefully.

_"Shawn..."_

"I'm kidding Gus. We've had a plan for years." He sighed.

_"Yeah, when the only ties you had to Santa Barbara were an estranged father and your friend." _Gust replied. _"Nobody would have really missed you; your father wouldn't notice, and I'd be with you. But now people _would_notice, people that we don't need on our tails; the police." _

"Okay, then what do you suggest, Señor Plan-Ruiner?"

_"...get a bunch of number two pencils, and-"_

"I _said _I was _kidding." _Shawn said, stressing the sentence. Even so, a small smile was curling at his lips. He paused briefly to swerve around a few cars that were going _way _too slow; in other words, they were going the speed limit. "We could try to bomb them..."

_"Shawn..." _Gus sighed heavily on the other line. _"I thought you said you'd stop making bombs."_

"Well, my friend taught me for a reason," Shawn responded. "and I think is a good enough reason as any."

_"And if a store reports that you're buying all the necessities for a bomb?"_

"Gus, don't be a crazy hooligan. We both know I can make a functioning bomb out of duct tape, a water bottle, some string, and a stick of bubble gum." All of which he had at his house. It wouldn't make a _strong_bomb, but hopefully it would work well enough. Now, if he wanted to make a _good _bomb, he'd need all of the previously mentioned ingredients, an onion, one of his socks, and a stopwatch.

_"I don't know, Shawn..." _Gus said, sounding uncertain.

"Fine. Then how about I _make _a few bombs, just in case we get into a tight situation?" Shawn said, pulling into the parking lot of his converted-laundromat home. He parked the motorcycle around back, both to make it look like an abandoned laundromat, or if people already knew it was a house, that nobody was home.

_"If you get caught by the cops, I'm not bailing you out." _

"Duly noted." Shawn replied, quickly hanging up and slipping his phone back into his jeans' pocket. He slipped in through the heavy back door, locking it securely - though, really, it would do no good - and quickly closed all the blinds. He kept all the lights off, except for one; a light right over a door to an old, small closet.

The closet's door was locked securely, different chains, bolts, and padlocks hanging from the door. Two planks of wood, old and dusty, were nailed across the door, firmly holding it in place. Showing a feat of strength that pretty much nobody knew Shawn possessed, the pseudo psychic ripped the planks right off the door, heavy-duty construction nails and all. He forced the door open, the heavy slab of wood scraping loudly against the floor and providing much more resistance than it had when he first nailed the closet shut.

Inside the small closet was an even smaller workbench, cluttered with a plethora of objects that were only related to each other through the fact that they were _there_. Wires and cables were in twisting piles that spilled over onto the floor, and there was a mountain of duct tape rolls in the far corner.

Everything was smothered in a thick layering of dust, right down to the last wire. Some things weren't even recognizable with the layer of dust that covered them. Shawn allowed himself a massive grin. It had been well over a decade since he had last made one of his favorite objects in the world.

Time to make a Big-Bang-Two.

**_:::Santa Barbara Police Department:::_**

"Why'd he run out of here like that?" Juliet asked, not for the first time in the twenty minutes that her boyfriend had been missing from his usual spot in...well...the entire police department. She hadn't stopped asking since he had left, and Lassiter was quickly beginning to wonder which was more annoying; Spencer with his phony predictions, or Juliet and her incessant rambling.

Sure, his running out of the police department without any type of explanation was odd, but what did Spencer ever do that _wasn't _odd?

Lassiter lifted the grainy image of the wolfish thing off his desk, staring at it with a frown. It was just a grainy image of some idiot dressed up in a wolfman costume. Nothing that should set _anybody _off. So why had-

No. Lassiter slammed a lid down on the thought immediately. There was _nothing _wrong with Spencer, nor how he was acting. There was no reason to believe _anything _that would make Lassiter need to spend any more time with the younger Spencer.

Fifteen minutes later found him pacing back and forth in the men's room, grumbling under his breath. The case file was open on one of the sink counters, its contents spread across the cold surface, carefully arranged so that none of the resting water on the counter would bleed onto the papers.

Something wasn't making sense, and no matter how much he tried to ignore it, he _couldn't _ignore Shawn's odd behavior.

_'It was this picture.' _Lassiter thought, once again looking at the photograph that had started it all. _'Not the information given on the case, but this one picture. Is Spencer afraid of wolves or something?' _Lassiter snorted at the thought; while Spencer seemed to be afraid of - or at least freak out about - a lot of things, he had acted okay around wolves. The case when a man thought he was a werewolf was proof enough of that.

_'Okay, look at this like a case.' _Which, technically, it was. _'Look at the facts...' _

One: The image.

An image that looked like a man wearing a wolf pelt or something similar to look like a wolfman. Not too hard to understand.

Two: Spencer had seemed _frightened_ by the image.

Not just frightened in the usual, "I'm going to scream and run away and let the people with the guns deal with this" frightened, but the "I'm going to find my _own _gun to shoot the thing before it gets me" frightened. And there _was _a difference. If you need to find your own gun, it means the threat is something that shouldn't wait to be dealt with until professional help could arrive.

Three: Spencer had quickly gone from fright to anger.

Lassiter had rarely seen Spencer angry. There were only a few times that he had; usually when a friend or family member was threatened, especially in the incidences with Yin and Yang. And, while Lassiter would_never _admit it, when Spencer was angry - truly, righteously angry - and there was no stopping the younger man, Lassiter was a little afraid of him. Again, not that he would ever admit it.

And then something caught Lassiter's eye.

A small rectangle of green on the faded-colored image.

Small, and in the hand of the figure.

And then everything made sense.

Kind of.

But not really.

**_:::Psych Office:::_**

"And then you connect the wire there...and tweak it little bit _here, _and then...viola!" Shawn looked around the room, waiting for the inevitable correction from Gus. He could just hear him now...

_"It's not "viola," Shawn, it's "voilà." _

To which he would respond with his usual: "I've heard it both ways."

But no, Gus was still on his business trip, but knowing him, he was probably already on his way home from Phoenix, Arizona now that they were on Pink Alert, also known as Code: Pink Pearl.

God, he liked making up nicknames...

His current focus on the moment, however, was a mini-bomb he had constructed in just a few minutes out of random objects he had found in the Psych office. He would worked at home, but he had gotten jumpy in a place that was usually empty. Of course, the office was no better, but at least it still had the lingering smell of Gus, his dad (strangely enough), the last few clients, and the two stray cats he had taken in and then forced to get rid of by Gus. At least his placed smelled lived in, unlike his own home.

He was never one for staying in one place for too long, anyway. ADHD, maybe.

Gus had told him to lie low until he returned from his cut-short business trip, which would take about a day since he would have to stop somewhere for sleep to gas up the Blueberry. He had wanted to drive straight through the night, but Shawn had told him - repeatedly - that Gus's "malt-ball-head of ideas" would be no use with him tired. Besides, Shawn said he would have to sleep, too, so Gus getting back in at three in the morning wouldn't do much good.

Besides, Shawn could handle himself for a while.

And that was exactly when his front door nearly flew off its hinges.

Shawn leapt up from where he had been sitting at Gus's desk - getting his friend's desk sticky with pineapple juice, of course - while sweeping the bomb under his jacket and shirt.

He stared at the door leading from the front room to the offices, just _waiting _for the source of his current urgency to break in a rip his throat out. But the throat-ripping never came. And instead of a seven-foot mountain of muscle and fur, came a shorter, normal man. Except, of course, he was scowling, but that was a normal thing.

"Lassie!" Shawn cried, hiding his relief and stress behind a large grin. "And Jules! Not that I'm not happy for the visitors, but, uh, what are you two doing here? Don't you have that one case to work on, with the animal murders."

"It was a man." Lassiter said, apparently before he could think through his response for he shook his head to get back on track. "Spencer, let me see your phone." Shawn frowned slightly, but pulled the green rectangle from his pocket. He tossed it to Lassiter.

"Well, okay, but if you wrack up the phone bill, _you're _the one who'll have to explain to me dad, _and _pay for it." He paused. "_And _get me a month worth of pineapple smoothies, _free._" He tacked on the end.

Lassiter wasn't listening, however, and Juliet was inspecting the wires strewn across the floor in confusion. Lassiter was busy looking back and forth between Shawn's phone and something in his hand.

"Seriously, Lassie. What's going on?" Shawn asked, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against the wall. As he did so, he shifted slightly, allowing the bomb he had recently created to fall behind the fish tank and entertainment center that held it instead of a TV. Probably not a good idea to drop a bomb three feet to the floor, but Shawn knew what he was doing. Mostly. Homemade bombs weren't an exact science, after all.

"Spencer, do you still have that wolf pelt from the case concerning the man that thought he was a werewolf?" Lassiter asked, once again ignoring Shawn's question. Shawn blinked, scratching at his cheek.

"I...don't know what you're talking about!" He said, over-annunciating.

"I know you stole it from evidence, Spencer."

"How'd you know?" Shawn asked, before slapping his hands over his mouth.

"We have security cameras, idiot. Do you still have it?" Shawn sighed.

"Yeah. Gus wanted me to get rid of it weeks ago, but I like it!" He mimed stroking a dog in mid air. "He is my Fluffy and I named him Fluffy and he shall be my Fluffy, for ever and ever."

"Uh huh. And where were you two nights ago, ten o' clock in the evening?"

_'Well, I'd _tell _you, Señor Scowl-y, but you wouldn't believe me, so...' _"Uh...at home?"

"Are you asking me, or are you telling me?" Shawn stared to laugh.

"What is this, Lassifrass?" He asked. "An interrogation? I supposed I'm one of the murder suspects, now." Lassiter raised an eyebrow and just stared at him, offering up no comment. Shawn's smile vanished. "Oh, come on, Lassie."

"You have nobody to place you on the night of at least one of the murders-"

"Yeah, one! I bet a _lot _of people don't have alibis for at least _one _of the murders!"

"-you have a green cell phone, as seen in the picture here-"

"A _lot _of people have a green cell phone."

"-and you have a wolf pelt that is similar if not identical to the one in this photograph." He flashed the image with the wolfish figure, and Shawn flinched. He averted his eyes, staring directly at Lassiter, who returned the look in kind. Silence reigned.

"I didn't do it."

"Can you prove it?"

"Come _on!" _Shawn whined, flailing his arms briefly. "You're always trying to get me in trouble, Lassiter!"

"Well, if you didn't do it, you at least know something, don't you?" Lassiter demanded. Shawn's arms dropped to his sides. "Your reaction to the picture is proof enough. What do you know, Spencer?"

Shawn remained silent.

**Author's Note:**

...as it turns out, this one-shot became much longer than I originally thought. I already typed it all, and it's 46 pages long. ...whoops. XD Either way, I'm splitting it up into a few parts, and I'll put up each part every hour or so. Hopefully nobody's annoyed with my writing style or plot yet. XD If people are reading this, I mean. ...meh.


	2. Part II

**Author's Note: **Ah...aquí es parte dos. Er, or somethin' like that. Hurrah for one semester of Spanish in Sophomore year? Yes. Hurrah!

_Part 2_

**_:::Santa Barbara Police Department, Detainment Cells:::_**

"Jules, you've gotta let me out." Shawn whispered, wrapping his hands around the bars as he pressed his face between them, staring at his blonde girlfriend with wide eyes. "You know I didn't do this."

"I know you didn't." She agreed. "_But..." _She added on quickly, cutting Shawn's growing smile short. "...I agree with Lassiter. I think you know something. And if it's because you're protecting someone or just scared, I get it, but you need to tell us." Shawn stared at her for a long while, and she stared back. With a huff, he propelled himself away from the bars, and threw himself onto the squeaky bed in the detainment cell, landing heavily on his stomach. He made a point not to look at Juliet.

His father had come and gone in the two hours he had been in he detainment cell. He had only come for seven minutes, ranting about how Shawn was an idiot to get wrapped up so much in something, and how he would have to find his own way out of the situation. Not like he hadn't had to find his way out of tough situations on his own before, but every time it had been people that meant pretty much nothing to him. But these people...well, he couldn't just smack their heads together and make a quick getaway while they were unconscious.

Chief Vick had been down, too, demanding Shawn answer their questions. But he hadn't answered them. That was why they had left him alone in the detainment cell with only Juliet as his company, hoping he'd spill the beans to her.

_'This is just like all those years ago, when I called in the tips.' _Shawn thought bitterly. _'The same thing. They think I know something, so they arrest me. Only this time, I don't have any excuse to get me out of this one. This isn't just a few tips.' _He sighed, shifting slightly.

He was itching to get up and run, to get away from the tight confines of the cell. The bars that kept him in the small room didn't help, either; he _hated _bars, unless they were the kinds that would serve him something strong or on the rocks.

It wasn't just the bars, though, that had him on edge. It was the _promise _he had received when Lassiter had been leading him out of the Psych office in handcuffs.

The tall man that had _too _perfect features, smirking at him from across the road. Giving him a predatory look. The same man - but now with yellow eyes instead of his previous brown - holding up a flier that advertised how the SBPD was there to help.

The man knew where he was.

The man knew _who _he was.

Not just who, but _who._

Which was never a good thing.

He had begged and pleaded to be let go, giving up as much information as he could while still trying to keep Lassiter, Juliet, hell the entire city safe. But none of it would satisfy the detectives nor the chief, so here he was, locked in a detainment cell. He didn't know how many hours he had left, or if he even had that.

"If you just tell use what you know, Shawn, then we can let you out of here." Juliet called softly from where she sat outside the cell, once more trying to gently prod information from her boyfriend.

"I already told you. It wasn't a human, it was an animal. That's all I know about the case. Now if you don't let me go, then there's going to be one hell of a problem for the police department, so _let me go._"

If Gus showed up at the Psych office, only to find it empty, with only that man waiting for his arrival...

Oh, God, Shawn didn't want to think about it.

He glanced at the bars of the cell, contemplating the probability of him being able to bend them enough to allow him an escape route.

No, that would never work. He would still have to stroll right through the entirety of the police department, full of cops that knew his face. that would never work, not unless he wanted to bash a few skulls first. Which, of course, he didn't.

"Juliet, _please. _It's not just me who'll get hurt if I stay here. You will, and so will Lassie, and the Chief, and Woody and Buzz and everybody else in this entire department."

"And who will hurt us, Shawn?" Juliet asked, leaning forward in her seat in hopes for more information. She hated seeing her boyfriend so desperate, locked in what was essentially a cage. But she was a cop, first and foremost, an upholder of the law. She had a job to do, and sadly, this was it.

"Something that you won't be able to stop, and something that you _definitely _won't want to face. It'll kill you without remorse, without hesitation, and without any difficulty. You have to let me go!" Juliet just shook her head sadly. "Argh, you all just don't get it!" He buried his face in his pillow, returning to his mental drawing board on how to get out of his cell. And then, consequently, Santa Barbara, and probably the United States. He would, after all, be on the run from the cops.

_Again. _

He didn't even hear Juliet get up and leave, and he didn't notice her absence for the time that followed.

He did, however, hear the loud explosion that shook the foundation of the building to its core.

**_:::Chief Vick's Office:::_**

"I don't know what he knows," Juliet said with a heavy sigh. "but whatever it is, he thinks its coming. Here. For him. And that'll hurt us in the process." She turned to the Chief. "I say it wasn't him Chief."

"Of course it wasn't him." Vick said, ignoring Lassiter's almost silent release of breath in a sigh that border-lined being disappointed. "But that doesn't mean that Lassiter wasn't right this time, and that Spencer knows something."

"_This _time?" Lassiter's annoyed voice called, which was promptly ignored.

"Do you think he knows the murderer's identity?" Juliet asked, throwing her own personal theory out into the air. "And he's just scared that the murderer will kill him for revealing it?"

"He's figured out murderer's identities hundreds of times before, and revealed them to us, without any hesitation before." Vick said with a dismissive shake of her head. "It's not that."

"Maybe he has something illegal he doesn't want us to know about." Lassiter said with a small smirk, staring off into the distance the same way he had since he had entered the room.

"Like what?" Juliet asked, all of the wires she had been inspecting at the Psych office coming to mind. "A bomb?" She had meant it as a joke of course, but Lassiter snorted.

"He's nowhere near smart enough for that. Remember the one case with the bomber? When he almost got us _all _blown up because he thought we were supposed to clip the green wire or the red wire or whatever, and it wasn't there?" Juliet shrugged, opening her mouth to respond.

She was cut short, however, when a loud blast rocked the building, shaking a few things from their places on the walls or on the Chief's desk.

Screams echoed from outside Vick's office after the loud crashing of falling objects halted, followed by a loud, piercing howl.

"What?!" Lassiter growled, storming out of the office with Vick and Juliet trailing right behind him.

Policemen and women were scrambling around, either fleeing from the entrance of the police department, or running towards it with much heavier artillery.

"What in the name of Sweet Lady Justice is going on here?!" Lassiter demanded loudly, making a grab for the nearest fleeing cop. "McNab!"

"Oh, uh, h-hi, Detective." He looked over Lassiter's shoulder, nodding to the two women. "Detective. Chief." He looked back to Lassiter. "Look, I'd love to talk, but I have to go find a gun." He glanced at the weapon on his belt. "A _bigger _gun." He darted off before another question could be asked.

"What? Why?" Juliet called after the tall man, but he was already gone. The trio exchanged glances, then jogged towards the direction the loud _ratta-tat-tat_'s of firearms.

Policemen and women were crouched on the ground, more than one collapsed on the ground and covered in some amount of blood. Anybody that _wasn't _unconscious - or dead, as some of them seemed to be - was taking cover behind counters or other various objects, either catching their breath or reloading their weapon of choice.

"WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING?!" The Chief yelled, her eyes ablaze with fury.

"Chief, Lassie, Jules, get down!" The three were pulled down to the dusty floor moments before a large cinderblock was hurled at their heads.

Their savior was hunched over behind the front desk, numerous tears in his plaid shirt with more than half of the buttons missing. A horizontal slice decorated his left cheek, blood spilling out in thin sheets to die the collar of his shirt a ruby red. Even so, he was grinning stupidly, waving at the three that he had just recused from either a nasty head injury, or something much worse.

"Spencer-" Lassiter began, but was silenced as his savior stuffed a wad of paper in his mouth.

"I'd love to chat, Lassie, but I think we have a bigger problem here." Shawn said, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the front door.

"Who let you out of the detainment cell?" Vick asked, frowning. She hadn't seen anyone go down to the cells to let anybody locked up out - which was supposed to happen when any type of emergency came along, and this seemed to be one - but then again, she had barely seen anything besides the interior of her office since the case of the mauling-serial killer started. Shawn stared at her for a moment, and then broke out into a grin.

"Who said I was let out of my cell?" Juliet palmed her forehead, Vick blinked, and Lassiter scowled. "Please, we all know that I'd be able to escape jail. Your detainment cells are too easy! I've escaped harder places in my sleep." He lifted his finger into the air. "And I repeat: We have bigger problems than Lassie's inability to accept that I'm more awesome than him-"

"Spencer!"

"-and how your security in a crisis is severely lacking."

"And what problem would that be, Mr. Spencer?" Aside from the seemingly crazy cops that were shooting at the entrance. "And how did you know about it?"

"First of all..." Shawn held his hand up to his temple and wiggled his eyebrows. His smile fell, as did his hand. "And as for what the problem is..." He pointed directly above his head as a large glob of viscous and cloudy liquid dropped on his head, thoroughly messing up his hair. "...that."

The three looked up while Shawn sighed, and a very girly scream pierced the air, one that Lassiter would later deny.

Hanging above their head was a massive wolf, its maw gaping to drip tendrils of saliva from its fangs. Its long fur was ragged in white, with more than a few patches missing to reveal bloody flesh that rippled with muscle. Its forelegs were hardly forelegs at all, looking more like human arms; in fact, that what they resembled _exactly,_ except that they were covered in white fur, and the human-like hands were ended in long, jagged claws. The monster's piercing yellow stared hungrily at the four, its long, pink tongue darting out to swipe at its entire muzzle. Its lips peeled back from its jagged fangs.

"Hit the deck!" Shawn ordered, dragging the three further to the floor as he dove downwards. The wolf flew over the three in a poorly-executed pounce, slamming face-first into a nearby pillar, where a few cops rounded on it and unloaded enough bullets into its body to kill a bull elephant. The thing twitched, and then laid still.

"W-what is that thing?!" Juliet squeaked, her eyes wide. After the wolf had leapt, it had revealed its lower body. Its hind legs still looked a bit like those of a wolf or an animal - the legs being digitigrade legs - but the key word was a _bit. _The feet looked like a grotesque mix of feet and paws, with curled claws with razor-sharp points, and while the wolf's tail had nothing odd about it, the wolf-thing was wearing _pants._ Ripped pants, yes, but it was still wearing pants. And its torso wasn't shaped like a wolf's, but a man's. "What _is that thing?"_

"Ah, Wolfman?" Shawn offered with a hesitant and uneasy smile. The three stared at him, and he blinked rapidly. "What?"

"How is that possible? How is _it _possible?" Juliet asked. "It's...I mean, look at it!"

Shawn frowned, staring at the wolf-man...thing. He had accused a dinosaur, a werewolf, a vampire, and ghosts of murder on multiple occasions; figured that the police were not exactly onboard with the one thing he _knew _was real. "Why're you asking me?"

"Because that's the thing in the picture!" Lassiter hissed. "And you know something about that!"

"Hey, hey, I never said that I knew anything about that." Shawn said, pointing with an intense look on his face. Lassiter's eyebrow kicked up. "But...uh..." He lifted a hand tentatively to his temple. "...I _may _be sensing that that thing is known as an "Eraser.""

"I knew it!"

"I said "sensing," Lassie, as in "I didn't know that until now when my sexy awesomeness and amazing hair listened to the spirits and heard this divine information."

"...Spencer, that didn't make any sense."

"He's right, Shawn. Hair doesn't have ears."

"You too, Jules?" Shawn clicked his tongue. "Man can't win anything here, can he?"

"People, bicker later!" Vick barked, diving down next to them. While the three had been arguing, Vick had moved off to join the rest of the police force, firing her own pistol at the other wolfmen - or, Erasers, as Shawn had dubbed them - that were still moving in through the front door. "We need to deal with this _now! _Like find out why they're attacking the police department, for one!" Shawn raised his hand in the air.

"I know why they're here!" He yelped, loud an shrill, as a Eraser hand tried to swipe his own off at the wrist. "_And _I know how to get rid of them!"

"And how do you expect to do that, Spencer?!" Lassiter snapped, taking his place next to Vick, pulling his own handgun from its holster. Shawn grinned, the corners of his mouth curling up in a grin that was a bit too much like the Joker's. He dug into one of his pockets, and pulled out a handful of...

...Pink Pearl erasers.

"What are you going do to with those? Throw them at them?" Lassiter snorted. Shawn waggled his eyebrows.

He leapt to his feet, turning towards the nearest Eraser who was standing just a few feet away. He drew his arm back.

"SUCK ON THIS, BASTARDS!" He screeched, lobbing a handful of Pink Pearl erasers at the wolf-man. They bounced harmlessly off of the wolf-man's chest. The entire police department fell silent as the pieces of rubber dropped to the floor. Everybody froze, police nor Eraser moving a muscle as they stared at the little erasers meant for students in elementary school.

The wolf-man suddenly started to roar with laughter, its comrades following in its example. Its jagged fangs glistened with saliva, and more than a little bit of blood.

...fun.

Lassiter rounded on the blue-green-eyed-man.

"Spencer! What in the hell was that supposed to do? Annoy them?! Well, it probably worked!"

"Wait for iiiiiit..."

The Pink Pearls began to glow, halting the Erasers' laughs. Within seconds, they exploded, bursting out in a terrifying shower of flame and light. Silence once again reigned as the dust began to settle and clear. While it was still dusty to all hell, the lack of a frontal Eraser was apparent. All that was left were two grotesque feet-paws.

"Erasers erasing an Eraser! Poetic justice, my friend, POETIC JUSTICE!"

"Holy crap, Shawn!" Juliet shouted in the roaring silence, uncovering her head from where she had ducked for cover right when the freaking erasers _exploded. _"What was that?!"

"A bomb! Well, multiple bombs. Inside erasers. I made them!" He said the last part proudly. Juliet's gaze shot to Lassiter, looking torn between grinning smugly and and looking horrified. Shawn just settled for looking obscenely proud. "And I didn't even think I remember how to make a micro-bomb anymore! Or put them inside erasers. That there is tricky business."

"Mr. Spencer, did you just detonate a bomb inside my precinct?"

"It was more like five bombs, Chief."

"I counted five, Chief."

"Mr. Spencer, did you detonate _five _bombs inside my precinct?"

"That I did, Chief. And they performed _magnificently."_

"...Spencer, you're a dumbass."

"And you, Lassie-Face, are a party-pooper."

"Shawn, you _do _know that it's illegal to build bombs, right?"

"Oh, Jules, not you, too! I just blew up an Eraser! I think we can overlook the fact I built five-plus bombs."

"PLUS?!" Multiple voices cried in unison, with a few Erasers choosing that moment to back further away from the childish man.

"Well, did you really think I only built _five _micro-bombs? Come now, guys, I thought you'd know me better by now."

"We didn't know you could build bombs at _all, _Mr. Spencer!"

"...then you all apparently knew me less than I thought." Shawn blinked, and flicked another Pink Pearl at an Eraser that was trying to get the jump on a cop. The eraser flew into the wolf-man's mouth, and it snapped its maw shut with wide eyes and a high-pitched squeak. Shawn spun his finger in the air. "You might want to run, fuzz-butt." The Eraser stumbled backwards, clawing at its own stomach.

It suddenly froze. Its stomach began to expand, as did its throat and cheeks. With an explosion of gore that splattered the walls, the Eraser was pretty much vaporized.

Shawn peaked his head over the counter he had ducked behind, just barely being protected from the blood that bathed the walls. He made a face, contemplating using his typical high-pitched scream he would utilize when violence erupted, and he was the center of it.

"And that goes for the rest of you!" He called to the remaining Erasers. "Get outta here before there's I pull out the _real _bomb!"

A few Erasers scrambled at that, gruff mumblings - which surprised the cops, since the words were _English -_ exchanged as they fled with their tails literally between their legs.

Shawn ducked back behind the counter, grinning across the isle to Vick, Juliet, and Lassiter. "Still got it."

"Got what?!" The three hissed, and his grin just grinned.

_Wouldn't you like to know? _the grin said, and that was all that Shawn offered up.

The Erasers who hadn't fled were making their way back towards the innards of the police department, more bodies of Erasers collapsing, dead, by the minute.

"I thought they'd leave..." Shawn thought out loud. He jumped with his classic shriek when a hand clapped down on his shoulder, a shock running down his spine. He spun around. "DAMN! Gus, don't do that, man! I almost flew through the ceiling!"

Gus offered a small smile, but his face was noticeably paler. His eyes kept darting to the Erasers that were struggling to get into the building under the heavy fire.

"Shawn, we gotta get outta here." He muttered, nodding his head towards the back of the precinct, or more specifically, the back door. Shawn opened his mouth to protest, but after a moment of contemplation, he closed his mouth and nodded. He took a quick glance around the precinct; he was _so happy _that his dad had the day off. He did _not _feel like explaining things to that man at the moment.

He glanced down at the two remaining Pink Pearl bombs he had in his hand, and with a shrug, he tossed them over his shoulder and the counter, grinning as they exploded in a flurry of flames behind him. He spurred himself to his feet and dashed after Gus before the Erasers could move after them, or before the police could stop them.

"Shawn!" Juliet called after him, drawing the attention of Vick, McNab, and Lassiter, but he was already gone, rounding a corner towards the stairs that led to the back doors.

"I've got some bags in the Blueberry, and, uh, some new plates if they're needed. I withdrew the money from our bank accounts, and, uh, I have those false IDs you made a while back." Gus was saying, but Shawn was hardly listening.

"We don't need to leave the _city, _Gus." Shawn protested, but was quickly silenced by Gus's hard stare.

"Yes, we do. Those wolf guys-"

"The Erasers."

"-whatever...the _Erasers_ tried to attack you in a _police department. _They obviously don't care where you are, or who you're surrounded by. We need to leave Santa Barbara, as much as I hate to admit it." Shawn wrapped his fingers around Gus's upper arm, jolting him to a stop.

"You mean _I _have to leave Santa Barbara. You're staying here." Gus snorted, and Shawn cut him off. "Gus, serious-Shawn time. You have a family here. A family, a job, and a life. A normal life. _This _is my life; moving from place to place to stay ahead."

"You have a family and a life here too, Shawn." Gus jerked out of Shawn's grip, and reversed their roles so he was dragging his fairer-skinned friend. "And now we're both gonna leave."

Shawn shook his head with a sigh. He hated "serious-Shawn" moments, especially when they involved his less-than-public life. And he _hated _when Gus had to take the fall for them. Okay, so he didn't _always _hate it when Gus had to take the fall for him, but sometimes he did.

...okay, he only hated it when it was concerned with his less-than-public life, but still.

They snuck out the back doors, slipping into the Blueberry, which was parked behind a cluster of bushes to keep it out of sight. For the Erasers, though, sniffing out the car would be no problem. The parking lot was void of Erasers, however, something that the duo counted as a blessing.

"I'll drive."

"Oh no you wont, Shawn! This is a company car! _Company car!"_

"And we're going to be on the run! It won't matter who the car technically belongs to! Gimme the keys!"

"No." Gus said, fixing his face in a neutral expression and staring off into the distance, crossing his arms stubbornly.

"Gus, don't be a...a...just gimme the damn keys!"

"Not on your life. Get in the car." Gus slid into the driver's seat without another word, effectively cutting off the conversation. Shawn stamped his foot on the ground - not unlike a little kid - and got into the passenger seat with a scowl, buckling and crossing his arms to pout.

**Author's Note:** Uh...part two's done. :D


	3. Part III

**Author's Note: **Here's part...three? Yes, part three. Getting closer to the end of the now-more-than-one-shot.

_Part 3_

**_:::Outskirts of Santa Barbara:::_**

"Really? You made all that fuss about me driving, and we're just gonna ditch the car?" His hand flew theatrically to his temple. "I'm sensing you're an idiot."

"Don't you pretend to be psychic around me, Shawn!" Gus barked, locking the Blueberry before throwing a black tarp over it.

"We're ditching the car, stop tucking it in to bed!"

"Suck it, Shawn, it's still a company car!" Shawn snorted, rolling his eyes. He turned away from Gus to stare up at the tall, imposing trees that stood tall on the mountain slopes, casting dark shadows on the forest floor. That was their escape plan; _walk _through the forest to lose the Erasers, find a new car, and use that. The multiple, fake license plates made more sense, but Shawn still couldn't understand why they were ditching a perfectly good car.

He never remembered traveling being so troublesome.

Then again, he never used a car then, either. Motorcycles had always been more his style.

"There's a mountain hiking trail around here that'll bring us across the mountains." Gus said, pointing east. "Then we'll be home free."

"Yeah, until we're found again by the Erasers." Shawn mumbled to himself, just out of Gus's earshot. He slid his backpack higher onto his back, feeling like a pack mule; his backpack was easily twice as big as the one Gus was carrying, and he was positive his was the one that carried all of the _heavy _things.

Gus strode past him, still talking about his plan to escape California, but Shawn wasn't listening. He was staring back the way they had came, to the rooftops of buildings he could see between the tree branches further down the mountain.

"Shawn." Gus called, waiting a bit a ways further up the path. "Come on, we have to go." Shawn nodded, but froze as he moved to follow him.

He lifted his nose in the air, frowning. It wasn't that he smelled anything, but that he _heard _something. His eyes suddenly flew wide.

"Duck!" He yelped, throwing himself to the forest floor while simultaneously moving his arms to protect his head. Gus took only a second to follow his example. Nothing moved.

"...Shawn, were you-"

_BANG! _

The freshly-dead body of a Eraser fell onto the path, half of the back of its head missing.

Gus and Shawn screamed.

"God, Guster, Spencer, _shut up!" _Lassiter snapped as he stepped out after the fallen Eraser, followed by McNab, Juliet, and...Henry?

"Dad?" Shawn said, sounding incredulous, as he bounced to his feet. "What are you doing here? No, scratch that. What are you _all _doing here? And how'd you even know where we were! Gus, you said you were being stealthy!"

"I was! Like a jackal!"

"Oh please, Guster, it's not hard for the SBPD to find a blue Toyota Echo with the license plate of 5OLPT46 with two idiots inside of it." Shawn and Gus blinked.

"You followed us here while McNab picked up my dad, didn't you?" Shawn asked, lifting his hand to its usual place next to his temple in explanation. Lassiter refused to respond, but behind him, Juliet and McNab were nodding.

"As for why I'm here, why are _you _here? What are you doing, Shawn? And what in the the name of all that is holy is that thing?" Henry demanded, jabbing a finger at the dead Eraser.

"Uh, that would be a dead Eraser. And as for what I'm doing...um...Gus, you wanna take it from here?"

"We're, uh, going...hiking?"

Shawn smacked his forehead.

McNab swore, quite loudly. That within itself drew everybody's attention; kind, goofy McNab, tossing out f-bombs.

The Eraser was steadily shrinking, its fur shortening, its claws, muzzle, tail, and ears vanishing as its legs twisted themselves back into humanoid legs. What was once a giant bipedal wolf was now quickly becoming something _much _more human.

"What the hell?!" Lassiter barked, stepping away from the Eraser's body.

"Don't mind him." Shawn waved his hand in dismissal. "They do that."

Juliet stepped forward. "Shawn...where are you going?" She asked slowly in her no-nonsense tone. Shawn frowned. He didn't need his hyper-observant ability to tell that she was upset, and more than a little worried. Shawn shuffled his feet.

"Er...that...general direction?" He offered, pointing east. His finger trailed north. "Maybe...that way a bit?" To a non-extraditing country, most likely. "All in all it's kind of a toss up on where we actually end up, but that's part of the fun."

"We are _not _going to Mexico again." Gus warned with a pointed look, and Shawn wined.

"Twice, Gus, _twice!"_

"Twice is three times too many for me!"

"Shawn, you're not going anywhere." Henry said, stepping towards his son. As her walked towards Shawn, the younger man moved backwards, always keeping at least fifteen feet between them.

"Trying to control my life again, dad? Well, stop it! I'm going. I've done it before, I don't know why you're all making such a big deal about it now." Gus nodded his head rapidly.

"We all knew Shawn wouldn't be able to stick around long, anyway! He always runs from commitment."

"Gus, don't say it like _that!" _Shawn whined, glancing repeatedly at Juliet. He paused, his hearing picking up the subtle cracking of branches further down the mountain. He frowned. "Gus, teigo-ba itocri." Shawn suddenly said, gaining four confused looks, and one horrified one.

"Egway?" He asked.

"Kra, _egway." _Shawn looked to the others on the trail, muttering "Bandada..." over and over. "You four need to leave. Like, _now._ Gus and I have important things we need to attend to." A mechanical whirring drifted through the air, the tone one that only Shawn could hear clearly at the moment. He swore to himself. "Flyboys, Gus."

"...this day is just getting better and better, Shawn." Gus groaned. Shawn laughed, though it wasn't filled with too much mirth.

"Shawn, what are you running from now?"

"Dad, who says I'm running from anything?"

"Because you never leave Santa Barbara unless you're running from something. Even when you left years ago, you were running."

"Well, who says I'm running _now?"_

"Because I know you, son. Now tell me why you're running, or so help me God, I will _drag _to back to Santa Barbara by your _teeth." _

"Good luck, old man." Henry crossed his arms.

"Then I'll just keep following you until you tell me."

"You've never cared before, dad. Why start now?" Shawn demanded suddenly, venom that he hadn't meant to show leaking into his voice. Henry blinked, for a moment too stunned by Shawn's odd behavior to respond.

"I admit I made some mistakes, but you're my son. I'm not going to let you run away from a life where you've got it good enough." In frustration, Shawn threw his arms in the air.

"The Erasers are after me!" He barked, his voice loud in the silence of the forest. "They've _always _been after me! Ever since I was young! I was safe enough until you divorced mom-"

"Don't you turn this into another complaint about-"

"-dad, would you _shut up? _You asked for an explanation, and I'm giving one." Shawn took a moment to take a deep breath, and when he started talking again, he was no longer shouting. "When you divorced mom, I did...some stupid things. The Erasers found me again. _That's _why I ran off all those years ago. Not because of your divorce from mom, not because I hated you. Well, that might have been some of it, but not all. I ran because the Erasers had found me.

"I thought I lost them, so I came back to Santa Barbara. Apparently, I didn't." Though, really, he should have known better than to have his picture in the newspaper every week for solving a case; the Erasers knew his face, and worst of all, knew _who _he associated with when he was younger. Narcissism _rocked. _

"What do you mean they're after you?" Lassiter asked, frowning.

"I know this may come as a complete surprise to you, Lassie, but I make a lot of people mad." Lassiter snorted; that wasn't a surprise at all. "What with my amazing hair, strong features, and special talents, it's quite easy." Shawn shuffled his feet nervously. "Though, uh...it might have been all the Erasers I blew up...wouldn't you say, Gus?"

"That might have done it, Shawn." Henry choked on his own saliva.

"You _blew them up?"_

"Dad, get with the program. I can make bombs. We went over this already." Shawn rolled his eyes. He flinched - randomly in the eyes of those around him - as the "silent" forest began to get louder. "That's why I'm leaving. The Erasers found me." Again. He looked to Juliet. "I'm sorry, Jules." She shook her head.

"You don't have to leave, Shawn." She said, still shaking her head. "We can take care of this."

"No, _we _can't. But I can. Go back home. I'll back sometime, when the Erasers aren't dogging my heels anymore." He kicked at the partially-morphed body of the Eraser. "Bad doggy..." He looked back to the four. "The Erasers are coming. You need to go before-" The mechanical whirring was suddenly louder, _much _louder. "Flyboys! Down!" _'How many times will I have to dive for my life today?' _Shawn threw himself to the forest floor for the second time as a winged wolf-man swept through the trees, its claws swiping at his head and missing by centimeters.

McNab fired at the Flyboy first, the bullet grazing the massive twenty-foot wingspan of the beast as it pulled back up and through the canopy. "What was that?!"

"Flyboy. Twice as annoying as Erasers, 'cause they're not limited to the ground." Unless he counted the time when the Erasers had wings, too, but he was pretty sure that line had been discontinued when it was discovered that winged Erasers were as clumsy in the air as an elephant in a china shop. "They're machines, too. _And _they travel in packs."

Shawn peered up through the tree canopy, squinting. His better-than-most eyesight spotted the plethora of dark shapes darting around the sky, looking like massive, clumsy birds. From a distance they were easily enough mistaken for being large birds, or people on hang-gliders. But Shawn knew better; these shapes were much, _much _more dangerous than some idiot on a hang-glider who didn't know how to land.

He was on his feet in an instant, moving up the mountain trail. "Gus, come on. See-chass." Gus nodded, moving quickly after him while keeping his eyes dutifully on the sky in search of attacking Flyboys.

Ten minutes later, Shawn sighed, hanging his head. They had made good time on the trail - at least, he hoped - but hiking up the steep path with so much weight had caused the duo to take a few breaks. God, he was out of shape. "Teigo-ba balei ise." He called over his shoulder to his partner. Gus's head shot up.

"They are?" He asked, and Shawn nodded, jerking his head backwards to gesture over his shoulder and behind them. Gus looked around, frowning at their surroundings.

They had reached the part of the trail that was curving around a cliff face, with a sheer drop-off on the left, and a continuation of the cliff on the right. The trees were thinning out by the foot on the cliff face, and soon there would be only knee-high bushes to provide cover. Their stalkers wouldn't be able to hide for much longer. Which, really, was a blessing and a curse; a blessing since they would be able to tell them to go home again without them having cover to follow them, and a curse because the Flyboys would be able to see them.

Those four _really _should have just left good enough alone.

Shawn, however, wasn't going to wait.

He had chased them - literally - out of the trees and bushes in just a few minutes, staring at them disapprovingly. "I sent you all home."

"There were - what did you call them? Erasers? - on the trail. We couldn't go back." McNab said quickly, stepping forward in an attempt to take charge of the small group. Lassiter shoved past him, quickly followed by Henry, and the two got into a heated glaring match. Shawn stared for a moment, and then abruptly spun on his heels. He dragged Gus a few feet away, not protesting when Juliet joined them, though he didn't speak a word of greeting.

"What do you think?" He whispered to his darker-skinned friend. "Erasers down the path, Flyboys above, and who knows what up the path."

"There's not much we _can _do, Shawn." Gus sighed. "...we can take them with us. Get them over the mountain, and then they can get a rental car and drive back to Santa Barbara." Shawn nodded slowly, humming quietly to himself.

"I can deal with the Erasers and Flyboys, and the added guns _would _be helpful..." Shawn mentally sighed; he should have swiped a gun before he left. He was a crack-shot, after all.

He spun around again, nearly running into Juliet, who he offered an uneasy smile to. "Okay!" He called out loudly, gaining the attention of the silent McNab, and the bickering Henry and Lassiter. "You all are going to follow us. We'll get you over the mountain and make sure you aren't bothered, and then you can get back to Santa Barbara."

"And why would we follow you, Spencer?" Lassiter demanded with a scowl. Shawn raised an eyebrow, gesturing around them.

The path to Santa Barbara, blocked. The air, filled with Flyboys. A drop-off to the left, and a sheer cliff-face to the right.

Lassiter growled, but didn't comment. Shawn grinned.

"You were the ones who followed us after we told you to leave." He executed an abrupt about-face, pointing dramatically up the path. "Onward! To greatness!"

He marched on, strutting theatrically up the path. Discretely, he was keeping an eye on the Flyboys wheeling about ahead, and checking out the side of the cliff next to him. What would happen if he detonated a bomb, he wondered? Take out the path, sure, that was what he wanted, but it might've also taken out the ground they were still _standing _on.

Sliding down a sheer drop-off to your death; didn't seem too fun.

So chucking bombs at the cliff-face was pretty much out.

Behind him, Gus was fidgeting, his face pale as he tried to dodge all the questions being thrown at him by Lassiter, Henry, and McNab. Juliet, however, was trudging on by herself, his handgun clutched in a death-grip in her hand. Lifting an eyebrow, Shawn dropped back to walk next to her.

"Our relationship is pretty much over now, isn't it?" He whispered to her, frowning. Juliet shook her head with a shrug.

"I don't know, Shawn. I feel like you've been lying to me." Shawn glanced away; of course he was lying to her, about a lot more than just the truth about his psychic abilities. "I mean, look at all of this." She gestured up to the sky. "You're fleeing the city, for crying out loud."

_'More like the country.' _Shawn thought, but elected to not mention that.

"How can I be in a relationship with you when you won't even tell me what's going on?" She questioned. The maybe-couple trudged on in silence for a few minutes, before Shawn broke the silence.

"They're experiments." He suddenly blurted, loud enough for all to hear. The talking going on behind him ground to a halt, and Gus sighed in relief now that he didn't have to come up with half-baked answers. "The Erasers are experiments performed on people by probably the most whacked-out people in the world. One part wolf, one part man. Well, actually, they used to be one-third man, one-third wolf, and one-third bird, too, but they stopped that particular line. They're like hunter-killers, and aren't the nicest in the world.

"The Flyboys are mechanical flying Erasers, made to be more efficient. They're not, though. Hit them in the base of the spine, shoot them with a rocket, or throw a bomb at them, and they're pretty much toast. Disable them over water and it's pretty amusing to watch the light show."

"Okay..." Henry said slowly. "...but why are they after you?"

"I already said I've made them mad on more then one occasion, both them and the people who make them."

"Who would do something like that?" Juliet suddenly barked. "Experimenting on people is so...so...wrong!" Shawn smiled lightly, hiding it from view. "I thought there were laws about this! How come the government allows that to happen?"

"They don't." Shawn replied. "At least, I don't think they don't. I don't think they even _know_. And there _are _laws against it. But change the DNA of the person while they're still inside their mother's womb, and they can claim that the person isn't really a person anymore because of the added animal DNA."

"They still have human DNA." McNab replied. Shawn shrugged.

"So do chimps, but scientists still test drugs on them."

Lassiter was staring at Shawn strangely, frowning. "Why are you acting so strange?" He suddenly demanded. "Where's the usual, stupid-ass man-child?"

"Serious-Shawn time." Shawn deadpanned. He suddenly grinned. "But if you _want _the stupid-ass man-child to make a return appearance, I'd gladly oblige-"

"No." Two voices said in unison, only making Shawn's grin grow wider.

"There's something I still don't get." McNab said slowly. "How did you find out about all of this?" Shawn's grin was wiped from his face. He began to stutter.

"Well, uh, you see...I, um..." He swallowed thickly. "I, uh, know someone on the inside?" He received blank stares, and a quiet face-palm from Gus. "I'm close with somebody who was in the facility that made the Erasers and Flyboys, let's just leave it at that."

"...you mean you know an, er, Eraser?" Juliet asked. "I thought they didn't like you."

"Oh, no, they hate me. It's not an Eraser. The facility experimented with more than just wolves, humans, and machines. There were cats, dogs, mice, fish, rats, birds, lizards...anything you could think of, really. A lot of the experiments failed. The most successful were the Erasers, and just six bird-children."

"So you were a friend to a bird-child, then?" Juliet questioned slowly.

"I plead the second."

"It's "I plead the fifth," Shawn."

"I've heard-"

"You have not heard it both ways, Shawn!" The blue-green-eyed man-child smiled widely, his eyes shining with mirth as he stared stupidly at Gus.

"Where's your friend now?" Henry asked. "Why not leave that friend to deal with the wolf-men?"

"You really think that's a good idea? Sicking a wolf on a bird?" Shawn shook his head. "Besides, I don't know where any of the bird-children are now, and _no, _that is _not _me admitting to knowing them." Shawn paused briefly. "That's what's been killing those people, though; an Eraser. Probably more than one, actually. People stumble onto the Erasers, people scream, Erasers kill them to stay secret. They weren't expecting a picture to be taken, though, and for the police to be warned that they were there."

Shawn abruptly hit the breaks, throwing an arm out to stop those following him. His eyes narrowed. Something wasn't right... He had walked these trails before, many times in fact, and that dip in the road had never been there.

He cocked his head, things practically lighting up in his vision, begging for his attention.

The dip in the road.

The displaced dirt.

The shallow, thin trenches in the cliff-face.

The dirt that was darker then the rest, obviously upturned.

The partially-hidden footprint.

No, not a footprint.

A paw print.

"Crap..." He whispered to himself. His eyes darted to Gus. "Teigo-ba qeit." He glanced to the confused faces of McNab, Henry, Lassiter, and Juliet. "Uh, they're here."

Juliet raised her handgun a bit higher, subtly aiming up the path. "They are?" Shawn nodded. He raised his hand, at first looking to be about to tap his temple, but he tapped a bit lower; his ear.

"I can hear them."

"What do you mean-" Lassiter began to say, incredulous, but a large explosion cut him off, nearly blowing a few of them off the cliff.

The dip in the road had, apparently, been from a small cave dug out of the cliff-face, with the ceiling beginning to cave in. Inside the small cave had been some type of explosive, and with the resulting explosion, the road had collapsed in on itself, as had the cliff-face to the right, showering the exit in rocks and dirt that effectively shut off their way up the mountain. They could scale the debris, of course, but that would take time.

Time they didn't have, for Erasers had leapt down in the explosion, both down the way they had come, and in front of the newly-constructed rock wall.

Shawn swore.

"Shawn!" Gus shouted, already digging through his backpack and pulling out a metal bat. How he had fit it in the pack was beyond Shawn. "Goveryou!"

"What?!" The brown-haired man cried. "No way in hell!"

"You have to! Allay! Utuav te arebas!" Shawn shook his head at Gus's desperate pleading.

"Neckerchu, Gus. Read my lips! _Neckerchu!" _Shawn barked, scrabbling in his pockets, searching for any more micro-bombs. He mentally swore; he had used them all in the police department. Huffing in annoyance, he ripped a strap right off of his backpack as he dropped it, the thick strap ended in a cluster of heavy metal rings and buckles that were meant to secure the backpack to its wearer. He swung it around a few times; it would have to do, unless Lassiter suddenly decided to lend Shawn one of his guns, which was _really _unlikely. "Even if I get out of here, they'll still kill you!"

"Well, you need to go!" Gus swung the bat with as much strength as his quaking arms could muster, the metal concaving the face of the nearest Eraser. He was still shaking, even as the Eraser tumbled off of the cliff and out of sight into the dust blow that remained from the explosion. He had all the right to be afraid, though; he was accustomed to staring down the barrel of a gun, yeah, but it was easy enough to talk a man with a gun down, especially when there were two detectives with guns behind him.

A wolf-man monster that could take five bullets in the chest before grunting? Not so much.

Shawn whipped the strap above his head, swinging it into the back of the head of an Eraser who had wandered too close; it didn't do much, but the strength behind the swing made it back up with a snarl.

"Shawn, I swear, get out of here!" Gus demanded. Shawn ignored him, leaping back to stand behind Lassiter as the taller man unloaded a full clip into an Eraser before it fell.

"Shoot 'em, Lassie!"

"What do you think I'm doing, Spencer?!" Lassiter snapped. Shawn grinned, ducking as he slid under the detective's outstretched arm to reach his father.

His dad had been intelligent enough to bring along a pistol, and was firing it off sparingly, pistol-whipping as many Erasers in the face as he could. Any that he didn't think he could overpower he shot in the head, or at least as close to their head as he could. Apparently, while he had thought to bring the pistol, he hadn't thought to bring too many extra clips.

"You're being unnaturally brave about all this." Shawn's father observed casually, sounding much too calm for the situation.

"Serious-Shawn time."

"So I've heard." Henry muttered, more to himself than to Shawn. "They're after you, right?" Shawn nodded, but realizing his dad couldn't see him nor pay attention to his head movements, he said:

"Yep."

"Then why haven't you taken off yet?"

"Please don't tell me you're jumping on the Gus-idea bandwagon."

"I'm not going to have my son killed by a bunch of rabid wolf-men." Shawn swung the metal-ended strap into the face of an Eraser that was about to jump on Henry's back.

"Aw, dad, you _do _care."

"Shut up, Shawn, and get out of here!"

"How do you expect me to do that?!" Shawn shouted, stamping his foot briefly.

"You know how!" Gus replied, right before shrieking and ducking behind a boulder to dodge a diving Flyboy.

"You know I won't!" _'And I can't.' _Shawn thought, glancing around. _'Too many people, people I don't want to...' _To what? To frighten? To lose? He nodded with conviction. Under no circumstances would he run off and leave everybody to die. He would stay and either win against the Erasers, or be caught or killed.

_'Dark head black hair kill weapon kill-' _

"Uh, everybody with dark hair, DUCK!" Shawn covered his heads with his hands as a Flyboy dove at McNab, pulling up directly after missing.

"Thanks, Shawn!" The tall, young man called, smiling. Shawn nodded, and glanced to his father, who was also coming out of his ducking position.

"Why'd you duck?"

"You said to!"

"I said people with dark hair! Look at you, it's like a cue ball up there! And you never had dark hair, you were blonde!"

"Shawn!" Shawn grinned and darted away, taking his place at Juliet's side.

"How'd you know about the- you know what, never mind. Psychic." Juliet said, quickly reloading her pistol. Shawn smiled cheekily.

"Telepathy, this time. Gleaned it right out of the Eraser's brain, right offa its noggin." He tapped at his head.

"Since when were you telepathic?"

"Uh, just since _forever. _C'mon, Jules, the two abilities go hand-in-hand!" He held up the strap. "Want some help from me and my awesome muscles?" He asked, "flexing" his arm.

Juliet turned her head to stare at him, pulled the trigger of her pistol, and shot an Eraser directly between the eyes as he came around a curve in the trail. She didn't blink, not the entire time, and her blank expression never changed.

"You were saying?"

"Uh, I'll just...uh...go over...there." He pointed, and jogged back to Gus's side, swinging his metal-ended strap over his head with a stereotypical Native American war-cry.

Even though they barely had any clips or useable weapons, they beat back the wave of Erasers, either killing them or knocking them off the drop-off.

Shawn was near the cliff wall on the right of the trail, leaning against it while trying to catch his breath. He didn't really need to catch his breath, but, in Shawn's mind, it made it look like he had fought hard in Juliet's mind, and therefore make him all the more "hot."

"Did we get them all?" Gus asked, dropping his dented bat that was missing the last five inches to the ground. Shawn looked to his friend, smirking.

"Looks like I didn't need to go running, huh?" Shawn asked, snickering while Gus clicked his tongue and looked away. Later, they would probably get into an argument on Shawn's stubbornness, but right now, Shawn would bask in his own mini personal triumph. He looked to Juliet. "Still rethinking our relationship?" He asked, barely containing a chuckle. She just shook her head, sighing heavily.

"Sure, we got the ground guys..." Henry began, then pointed up. "But what do we do about the flying ones?" Shawn looked up, craning his neck to stare at the eight or nine remaining, spinning about in the air.

"As long as they stay up there, we should be fine." Gus replied. "But looks like we won't be getting over the mountain _this _way." He nodded towards the pile of rocks and dirt. He stared pointedly at Shawn, who shrugged, and nodded towards the other four. Gus rolled his eyes with a snort, but nodded in agreement.

Lassiter stared at the two, blinking slowly. "If dumb and dumber are done having their silent conversation, I'd like to know why we can't just go back to Santa Barbara and pretend like none of this happened." All stared at him. "What? I've had a long day!"

"Because those weren't the only Erasers." Gus replied. "There are more, and there's still probably a lot more in Santa Barbara." He shook his head. "It's best if we keep going. Right, Shawn?" Silence. "Shawn?"

Gus turned to his friend, sighing with exasperation. Shawn wasn't looking at him, though. In fact, he wasn't looking at anybody; he was staring off into space, his head cocked to the side, a strange expression on his face. At first Gus thought his hyper-observant partner had found something, but his current expression wasn't that of his "clue-face."

"Shawn?" Shawn blinked, turned his attention back to Gus.

"Huh?"

"Am I right?" Shawn frowned, and didn't respond. "Shawn? What's up?"

"Something's...wrong. I just...I can't...you know what? Ignore me."

"That'll be easy." Lassiter muttered with a roll of his eyes. Shawn shot him a crazy face when the older man wasn't listening, and quickly turned back to Gus before the man could notice.

"What was going on?" Shawn asked.

"I was just telling them that we've got to keep going, and that _they _should go back to Santa Barbara."

"Oh, yeah. What Gus said." Shawn nodded, gesturing broadly at the black man. "You obviously just saw what'll happen if you stick with us-"

"Which is all the more reason to." Henry butted in, cutting his son off. "You wouldn't have been able to fight them all off without us, Shawn."

"It would have taken a bit longer, but yes, we would have." _'Plus, without you here, I would have been able to _really _kick some ass...'_ Shawn paused for a moment, inhaling slowly, and releasing that breath even slower. "Dad, do you trust me to crack cases?"

"That's the _only _thing I trust you to do, and I barely even trust you to do that." Henry responded. Shawn shrugged, paused, shrugged, and then nodded slightly.

"Sure. Okay. But you trust me to crack cases. All I'm asking is for you to trust me here."

"Shawn, you're asking a lot more of us than to just trust you." Henry pointed out, planting his feet and crossing his arms stubbornly.

"I know. But _trust _me. Trust is the first step, and that sounded _incredibly _corny!" Shawn shook his head to get back on track. "Trust me. I have to leave, and you have to stay here. Trust that I can deal with this, and that I'll come back when I'm able to."

Henry set his jaw, his piercing eyes staring at his son. For a long while, the two Spencers gazed at one another, neither one blinking, nor twitching.

Henry sighed, glancing downwards as he shuffled his feet.

"Fine."

Shawn's tense expression relaxed, and he cracked a small smile. He visible sagged.

"But!" Henry suddenly barked, making more than one of the people there jump. "You have to call _every day_, at least two of us here, and tell us where you are, where you're going, and if you've seen any of these psychotic human-wolf experiments." Shawn nodded rapidly for each and every condition.

_'I won't be able to.' _He thought, even as he smiled happily. _'They might be able to intercept the call. They'll know where I am, and where I'm going. I probably won't even be able to call anybody at all. They'll be watched.'_He mentally shook his head. _'Calling is out of the question. And so is-'_

"Video chatting!" Juliet suddenly said, snapping her fingers and pointing. "We can video chat, too!" Shawn smiled, nodding.

"Yeah!" _'No.'_ "So, Jules...you're okay with me leaving, then? It's won't hurt...us?" Juliet, for a moment, stared at him with a frown, but finally she cracked, and smiled.

"I'm royally pissed." She deadpanned, still smiling. "But if this is something you feel you have to do, then you have to do it." She pointed at him, her smile leaving. "But I was serious about the video chatting." Shawn nodded. Her turned to McNab.

"Nabby!" He cried, spreading his arms. McNab laughed, giving the shorter man a quick hug.

"Come back soon, okay Shawn? Cases are more entertaining when you're around." McNab said. Shawn nodded, his smile growing larger.

"Don't forget to feed the little-boy cat, and say "hi" to Francine for me. Oh, and tell her I'm sorry I won't be able to make it to dinner on Friday." Shawn had been looking forward to that; dinner at the McNabs' was always an interesting experience, and Shawn liked seeing the little-boy cat from years ago again. That, and Mrs. McNab was one hell of a cook.

Shawn turned to Lassiter, huffing. "Lassie." He opened his arms, wiggling his fingers. "C'mon. Bring it in."

"I would rather go swimming with a grizzly bear." Shawn dropped his arms, frowning. "But if it's any consolation Spencer, I...may...at one point in time...think about _considering..._slightly missing you." Shawn's face brightened, his eyes flying wide while Juliet smiled and Gus whistled.

"That was a hug, Lassie."

"No it was not."

"Yes, it was. A hug for the soul."

"It was not!" Shawn snorted, slapping a hand over his mouth to hide his laughter, though his shaking shoulders gave him away. "...I hate you, Spencer."

Shawn reached down to his pack, but suddenly shot back up. "Oh, and tell Chief Vick that I'm sorry about the moped thing...and the segway thing...and the yacht thing...and the- you know what? Tell her I'm sorry for every single instance where any type of vehicle was disassembled and then reassembled inside the police department."

"That was you?!" Lassiter demanded loudly. "It took _forever _to get that Chevy Avalanche off my desk!" Shawn just smiled stupidly. After five minutes of calming Lassiter down, the two groups were standing face to face, with Juliet's hand wrapped up in Lassiter's jacket to keep him from dive-tackling the younger Spencer.

"We'll be back." Gus said, exchanging his own farewells with the four lined up in front of them.

Once again, Shawn was staring off into the distance, frowning. He always trusted his instincts - they had kept him from getting killed many times before - and at that moment, his instincts were screaming at him.

He latched onto Gus's sleeve in an instant, yanking him towards him as an Eraser who had been hiding behind a boulder pounced. The Eraser flew past, screeching, missing its mark by enough feet to be laughable.

Shawn laughed as the Eraser's pounce carried it over the ledge of the drop-off. "That guy has worse aim than Gus!"

"Hey!" Gus snapped.

"Spencer..."

"Bad aim is nothing to be ashamed of, Gus."

"Spencer..."

"My aim is impeccable, Shawn. Impeccable!"

"Shawn!"

"Huh?" Shawn sounded, spinning around to face Lassiter, who was standing dangerously close to the edge. His face was ashen, and shone with a thin layer of sweat. "What's wrong, Lassie? Did the big scary wolf make you pee yourself again?" He pointed over the edge.

"O'Hara..."

Shawn's heart froze in his chest, the silence quickly filled with the whirr of Flyboys as the dove towards the five on the mountainside.

"What?!" Shawn was at Lassiter's side faster than anybody thought possible for the out-of-shape pseudo-psychic. He nearly threw himself off the side with the speed he was moving, and arrived just in time to see what looked like a very human and very feminine hand disappear in the lingering dust from the earlier explosion far down the steep mountainside.

"JULES!" Shawn made to jumped after her, but Lassiter's hand clamping down on his shoulder stopped him.

"Spencer, stop!" He barked. "She's gone!"

"LIKE HELL SHE IS!" Shawn screamed. He physically shoved Lassiter off of him, and Lassiter froze; Shawn had _never _been able to dislodge his grip before, _ever. _By the time Lassiter had recovered, Shawn was already gone.

**_:::Shawn's P.O.V.:::_**

My heart froze.

It was like a lump of ice in my chest, unable to beat.

It was worse than when my heart stopped for a moment after I had been shot.

Juliet, my Juliet, _my Jules, _was gone.

The - forgive me for saying something so sappy - Jewel of my Life was gone.

Missing.

Tackled off of the edge of a cliff by one of those _damn _Erasers.

I was at the edge of the cliff in seconds, moving faster than even Gus had seen me move, and he knows a lot of the secrets I keep to myself.

I _knew _I had heard something, I _knew _it.

There! A hand! Vanishing beneath the dust!

If I jumped now, I might be able to catch up.

And I could shield her body wit my own.

The shock from hitting the ground wouldn't travel through me and hit her, right?

...well, I could always hope.

Before I could jump, a constricting force slammed onto my shoulder, and a small shock of pain ran down my spine.

It was Lassiter. Telling me that she was gone.

That she was dead.

"LIKE HELL SHE IS!"

I knocked Lassiter back; oh, I wish I could have seen his face when I displayed a bit of my _true _strength.

Oh, well.

I threw myself off the edge, pinning my arms to my side to tear through the air faster.

I was falling to my certain death.

But when it concerned Juliet and _maybe _saving her life, anything was worth it.

Even if my life with her had to end.

Even if I had to suffer.

For her, it was worth it.

**Author's Note: **Part four will be short. Just a warning. Like, only two or three pages short. 'Cause I'm bitchy like that. Oh, and for the weird-ass language. I made it up. Well, most of it. Some of the words were from Maximum Ride, the Flock's secret language. As for the words that were actually _in _the book, I guessed on the translations, so while they might not be exact, they're a rough estimate. The other words, I just made up. I have the translations for the sentences they're used in, though, in case anybody wanted to know what Shawn and Gus were saying.

_"_Gus, teigo-ba itocri." - "Gus, they're coming."

"Egway?" - "Now?"

"Kra, _egway." - _"Yes, _now."_

"Bandada..." - "We have to leave..."

"Gus, come on. See-chass." - "Gus, come on. _Come on._"

"Teigo-ba balei ise." - "They're following us."

"Teigo-ba qeit." - They're here.

"Goveryou!" - "Get out of here!"

"You have to! Allay! Utuav te arebas!" - "You have to! Go! Up-and-away!"

"Neckerchu, Gus. Read my lips! _Neckerchu!" _- "No, Gus. Read my lips! _No!" _

In my mind, Shawn would have taught Gus how to speak the Flock language. Where did Shawn learn it, you ask? You'll just have to make your own connections at the moment, until you find out in later parts. There's only five, anyway.


	4. Part IV

**Author's Note: **Here it is, part four.

_Part 4_

**_:::Normal P.O.V.:::_**

"SHAWN!" Henry roared, his voice falling hoarse.

"Henry..." Lassiter said, his voice soft, not quite believing what he had just seen. He turned, his shaking hand reaching for his shoulder holster. "...deal with the flying wolf-robots first...then..." Henry nodded, his face going red.

Then, they'd deal with his son.

McNab's eyes were unnaturally watery as he turned to deal with the incoming Flyboys.

Gus, on the other hand, looked torn between fainting, laughing hysterically, and just standing how he was; his eyes wide, his face pale, and his jaw gaping.

"Guster!" Lassiter barked, snapping Gus out of his trance. He nodded, retrieving his metal bat, brandishing it as threateningly as he could.

The Flyboys reached them almost before they could finish reloading their pistols, with two breaking off to disappear to who knew where.

The mechanical, flying Erasers focused most of their attention on Henry and Lassiter, seeing as the two were the best shots in the group.

Gus was running around like his pants were on fire, swinging the bat from side to side, hitting any Eraser that got too close to the other three men on the trail.

As he smashed in the metal skull of one of the Flyboys, he glanced towards the edge of the drop-off, where Shawn had been standing not ten minutes before.

_'Shawn...'_

**_:::With Juliet:::_**

She was falling, flipping around in the air like some falling leaf on steroids.

The wind was howling past her as she fell, and she coughed as best as she could, both from the lack of oxygen as she fell at faster speeds than she usually drove her car, and from the dust that still clouded in the air.

She should have seen it coming, really.

Shawn had been acting odd, saying something felt off, and he was a _psychic _for crying out loud.

She should have listened to him.

She had seen the Eraser jumping for Gus, and had seen Shawn yank him out of the way.

And then the wolf-man rammed into her, carrying her with it.

And now she was falling.

She had seen Lassiter staring over the edge of the cliff, his eyes wide, his expression horrified as he paled to a sickly ashen color.

Right before her visibility became zero, she had seen Shawn arrive at the edge.

Her boyfriend for such a short while when compared to how long they had liked each other had seen her falling to her death.

And she was still falling.

_'I'm sorry, Shawn.' _Juliet thought, closing her eyes as she tried to control her fall a bit more, and failed miserably. _'I'm so sorry...'_

But what was she sorry for? For all the mean comments she had ever said? For taking so long to finally accept his want to date her? For not trusting him?

All of it, really.

_'How long will it take for me to hit the ground?' _

At least, when she was dead, she'd be able to reach out from the grave, and maybe get a message through to Shawn and to everybody else. Shawn was a psychic, after all.

She just never thought _she'd _be the spirit contacting the crazy man-child.

_'Why is it taking so long to hit the ground?' _

The mountain hadn't been _that _tall, had it?

She cracked her eyes open.

Nope, still falling.

And then something falling _much _faster than her slammed into her side, wrapping arms around her.

At first she thought it was the Eraser that had carried her over the edge of the cliff.

She kicked wildly, punching and kicking and clawing and screaming. But really, what was the point? She was going to hit the ground soon enough anyway.

It wasn't like it really mattered.

"Juliet!"

Her eyes snapped open. Staring into hers was a pair of blue-green eyes that she knew well, eyes that she had fallen in love with long before she even knew it.

"Shawn?!"

The man-child grinned.

She slapped him.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"You idiot!" Juliet yelled over the howling wind. Tears flew out of her eyes, and they were no longer just from falling so quickly. "You're such an idiot..."

"What?! Why?!"

"You jumped off a cliff, you idiot! You shouldn't have done that!"

"I couldn't just let you do this alone, Jules!" Shawn shouted back. His voice was so quiet, even though his nose was just inches from her own. "I'm never going to let you do anything like this alone!"

"You idiot!" Juliet buried her head in his shoulder.

She hadn't wanted to die and leave her boyfriend behind...

...but this is definitely not what she had wanted, either.

They fell in silence for a minute, and then Shawn called:

"You don't want to die."

"Nice observation, Shawn!" He shook his head, and looked like he wanted to tap his head, but Juliet knew he wasn't about to let go of her.

"I don't really want to die, either!" He grinned wryly. "Dying doesn't seem very good for my health!"

"Too late for second thoughts, stupid!" Shawn nodded, and hugged her. She could feel it now, just sense it. The ground wasn't to far away. Shawn's tightening grip on her back was proof enough to that; she didn't need to be psychic to figure that out.

So this was it.

"Shawn, I love you." She whispered in his ear. He froze, and for a moment, Juliet was worried he wasn't going to speak.

"Love you, too, Jules." Another few moments of silence, and he hugged her tighter as she buried her face in his shoulder again. "Jules, do you trust me?"

Trust him?

What kind of question was that?

And was now really the time?

Why would he-

...oh.

Before, she had asked him how she could trust him, now that he had been lying about the Erasers. He thought she didn't trust him. But did she?

She had been sorry before, for not trusting him. She hadn't trusted him, then, because of his lies. She had not trusted him even a bit.

Below, she heard the crashing of trees as the heavier body of the Eraser smashed through the large plants and slammed into the ground.

"I trust you."

"Good." Shawn sighed, sounding relieved. "Then I hope you'll still love me-"

He was cut short by a loud snap.

A shocking jolt ran through her body, a rippling pain that ran from head to toe.

And then she felt absolutely nothing.

**Author's Note: **I THINK part five will be the last part. Probably. Maybe...yep.


	5. Part V

**Author's Note: **Here's the last part. Part five, I believe. There's an author's note after this, as a separate chapter. Please read it? Thanks.

_Part 5_

**_:::With the Others:::_**

The battle was going poorly.

Without Juliet, there was one less gun, and apparently, the female detective had been a pretty good shot.

That, and taking out robots was apparently harder then felling flesh and bone, even if it was seemingly steroid-laced flesh and bone.

Gus was, surprisingly, doing the best. He had taken down one Flyboy, but that was one more than anybody else. The others had managed to slow a few down, or have them fly off to do whatever their equivalent was to catch their breath, but Gus had smacked one right in the base of the spine with his metal bat, and the thing had crumpled like a house of cards in an earthquake.

But even so, one wasn't even a comparison to the six that still remained.

And the two that had disappeared before the fight had even began. Their original destination was still pretty much a mystery.

"I hate this!" Henry called, digging into his pocket as a Flyboy changed its direction to fling itself at McNab. "I only have a clip and a half left! What do you all have?"

"Two clips and the one in my gun!" Lassiter called back from where he was being chased by two Flyboys who had landed on the ground.

"Two guns, and a clip for each!" Apparently, McNab had been carrying two pistols, for whatever reason, and was now duel-wielding, something that he had proved to be surprisingly adept at.

And as for Gus...

"I got a big-ass freaking bat!"

Gus chased a fleeing Flyboy behind a pile of rocks, and reappeared seconds later, his arms thrown over his head as _he _fled from the three Flyboys who were chasing him, one sporting a flamethrower that belched flames and smoke.

His shriek could have broken through three feet of plexiglass.

"Dammit all..." Lassiter growled, turning on a dime to sprint after the fleeing, may-be-on-fire man, his own pursuing Flyboys sliding and slamming into one another in a tangle of limbs and mechanical shouts.

"I WILL TERMINATE YOU!"

"I WILL TERMINATE _YOU!"_

"Terminate each other, why don't you?!" Lassiter shouted over his shoulder as he fired repeatedly into the back of the head of the flamethrower-wielding Flyboy.

Not that arguing robots who had a very small selection of phrases wasn't funny, but now was probably not a good time to laugh at it.

Next time Spencer told him to leave something alone, he'd-

...oh, right.

Spencer had thrown himself head-first off of a cliff.

Not that Lassiter hadn't wanted to go after Juliet, either, but still.

"We need one of Shawn's bombs." Gus huffed as Lassiter fell in line with him, the two sprinting away from the three Flyboys, the other two - still arguing - moving to pursue Henry and McNab.

"Too bad he decided to go cliff-diving." Without any water.

Probably not as fun.

Gus glared at Lassiter. He didn't comment, though, because the Flyboys had suddenly all stopped moving. They had frozen in the middle of whatever action they had been executing. The Flyboy with the flamethrower was still even using it, with a long stream of fire just spitting out into the air.

The silence was deafening.

"What's going on?" Lassiter asked, and growled out in annoyance as Gus slapped a hand over his mouth.

There was a low thrum to the air, a steady beat, like a muffled drum.

_Thmmp...Thmmp...Thmmp..._

It was steadily getting louder, and Lassiter groaned from behind Gus's hand. Under the steady beat, was the far-off mechanical whir of approaching Flyboys.

Unlike Henry and McNab - who had just moved to join them - and Lassiter, Gus was much more giddy.

_Thmmp...Thmmp...Thmmp..._

"I told you, I told you!" He began to whispered quietly, doing his own little dance.

_Thmmp...Thmmp...THMMP._

_"...-ooooolllllLLLL_LLLY SHIIIIT!"

Something large and incredibly fast shot past the lip of the drop-off, streaking up into the air fast enough for a quiet, almost sonic-boom-like sound to ruffle the four men's clothing, along with a strong gale of wind.

Two more streaks followed the first, these two much slower and clumsier; they were Flyboys, following the first to the best of their ability.

The three streaks of color twirled around in the air, chasing one another, with loud exclamations of "Holy SHIT!" following them.

Then the first streak, the fastest one, broke off, and rocketed towards the ground.

Towards the four men.

At a _very _high rate of speed.

The streak suddenly halted, hanging in the air in front of the four men.

"Ho-ly shit..." McNab breathed.

The wings were huge, with long, stiff feathers. They had to be fifteen or sixteen feet from wingtip to wingtip, and had the coloration of a barn owl's.

They were massive, beautiful, and border-lined being otherworldly.

And they were attached to the shoulder-blades of Shawn Spencer.

Shawn Spencer, head psychic for the SBPD, CEO of the psychic detective agency named "Psych," was hanging fifteen feet over their heads, held aloft by two massive wings, his own wings.

He grinned down at the four of them, before looking over his shoulder to stick his tongue out at the two Flyboys that had been following him. That seemed to kick the grounded Flyboys into gear, and they shot off into the air, rejoining the other two.

"F28246eff! F28246eff!" The Flyboys chanted like a mantra, their mechanical voices grating and sounding like they were physically joining to one another.

"Oh shut up, y'jerks." Shawn looked back down to the four below, and tossed something that had been covered by his unbuttoned shirt down towards Lassiter. "Lassie, catch!"

The large thing slammed into him, carrying him towards the ground with a shout and a curse.

It was an unconscious Juliet O'Hara, her wind-swept hair falling in front of her closed eyes.

"S-Shawn, what the..." Henry stuttered, not even managing to get an entire sentence out. Shawn smiled uneasily at his father.

"I know." He gestured towards the large wings that were working hard to keep him in the air and in one place. "I'll explain later." He pointed at the Flyboys that were currently about to dive-bomb his head. "After I deal with these a-holes." He somehow spun around in the air, pulling out a compilation of about thirteen different objects to create on thing the size of his head.

Where he kept it, nobody knew, and nobody ever had nor ever would.

"Hey, Fly-bastards!" Shawn yelled, tossing the thing up and down. The Flyboys halted in the air, staring down at him through beady, robotic eyes. He caught the object one handed, and lifted it for all to see. "This is for the School, love the Destructive Duo!" He drew his arm back and then whipped it forward, the wire-wrapped object shooting through the air faster than a bullet.

The Flyboys began to scatter, flying in different directions, but they were nowhere near fast enough.

The Big Boy detonated with a resounding boom, tearing right through the bodies of the Flyboys that were flimsy in comparison to the force of the bomb.

A flying piece of shrapnel sliced through the air, and Shawn's right wing, before lodging into the ground just a millimeter from one of McNab's only remaining toes.

Shawn hit the ground with a thump, his arms coming up over his head to protect it from any more flying debris as his wings folded close to his back, compressing themselves so much that the joints cracked.

Once relative silence had returned to the mountainside - and once the fireball in the air was beginning to burn itself off - Shawn uncovered his head. He stared at the fireball, and at the apparently lack of Flyboys.

He grinned.

"Freakin' sweet!"

**_:::Spencer House:::_**

"You're one of the bird-kids."

"Was. _Was _one of the bird-kids - ow ow ow ow ow! - I've grown up. Well, I actually - OW, DAMMIT! - shrank, but that's all a matter of appearance-changing, a skill that I share with - OW! STOP IT! - someone else I know." Shawn yanked his arm out of his father's grip, rubbing at the white bandages wrapped around his forearm to keep the gash in his arm from spilling more blood. He glowered briefly at his father, a look the man, surprisingly, didn't return. He was too busy staring at the massive wings on Shawn's back.

Well, wing. The other was spread at Shawn's side, with Gus taping bandages to where the piece of metal had sliced through flesh, muscle, and bone. He trusted nobody else near the injury, which had taken a while to explain. Apparently, Gus had known about Shawn's extra appendages for years, and whenever they got injured, he was the one to help Shawn take care of them.

Which had opened up a whole new slew of questions.

After Shawn had quite violently blown up the Flyboys, the group had retreated to Henry's house, with Shawn hidden in the back of McNab's police cruiser. The tall, young officer had returned to the police department to report to Vick - yes, Shawn was fine, and yes, he was still in Santa Barbara. The secret about his wings, however, was going to remain just that; a secret - shortly after arriving.

Shawn had laid a still-unconscious Juliet in his bed upstairs.

And then the questions started.

Questions that he _really _didn't want to answer at the moment, so he dodged around a good number of them. He _did _answer a few, however. Yes, he was one of the bird-kids he had mentioned earlier, which also meant that yes, he was a human experiment. That hadn't made his father happy. And then he dropped a bomb-shell.

Shawn Spencer wasn't a Spencer.

Henry Spencer was _not _his father.

Henry hadn't spoken much to his "son" after that.

"I honestly can't believe you've kept this a secret for so long." Lassiter said from where he was leaning against a counter. He frowned. "Didn't you have to take your shirt off in the hospital after getting shot?"

"Why do you think I'm broke all the time?" Shawn asked. Aside from buying so much food to keep himself fed, of course. "Do you know how much I spend a year to keep a doctor quiet? Pretty much all my income."

"Which is why over $16,000 over my salary goes towards paying for him." Gus added non-too helpfully. Shawn jerked his wing, thumping Gus in the chest. Gus slapped Shawn's wound.

Needless to say, Gus was the victor of _that_.

"It's not hard, either, with me and my psychic awesomeness." Shawn lifted his hands to his temples. "Psychic manipulation here, telepathic idea-implant there, and boom! People stop thinking they saw a grown man with wings. That's not all I can do, either." Lassiter snorted.

"Yeah? Like what?"

Shawn raised an eyebrow.

"Hi, I'm Carlton Lassiter. I'm a prissy little baby-detective who wants a gigantic pony and is afraid of snow globes." Lassiter said, his voice overly cheerful.

Except it wasn't Lassiter.

His mouth hadn't moved.

But Shawn's sure had.

"Mimicry and voice-throwing." Gus said, smacking Shawn on the back of the head. "His voice abilities get him in trouble a lot."

"For the record, that time in Canada wasn't my fault! Nor were the ones in Mexico, Oregon, Florida, Las Vegas, or Finland."

"Sure they weren't." Gus said with a roll of his eyes. "He can also change his appearance to a small extent, see in the dark, has heightened senses, can fly at great heights and speeds, can talk to a few types of animals, manipulate thoughts or impressions slightly, implant ideas, mentally communicate, and breathe underwater."

"Among other things." Shawn said with a dismissive wave of his hand. Henry stared at the younger man.

"Gus, Detective, do you two mind giving me a moment alone with my son?" The two left, with Shawn mouthing pleas in Gus's direction. The darker-skinned male ignored him, though, and quickly left.

Shawn turned back to his father, and stared at him. Henry stared back.

Five minutes later, neither had uttered a word, and Shawn had busied himself by drumming his fingers on the kitchen table.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Henry's question same so unexpectedly, that for a moment Shawn thought it had just been his imagination.

"I had made a life for myself." Shawn stared slowly. "You and mom seemed happy with a son, even if you didn't know that he wasn't your own." The brown-haired avian-American paused, contemplating his words. "Mom was...barren. I saw that you two wanted a children, but were unable. You wanted a child. I wanted a family. It was an opportunity too good to pass up."

"Then why didn't you tell us later?"

"Because you two were still happy. What would you two have done if you found out what you had believed for so long had been false?" Shawn sighed. "And there was never really a good time to tell you. I mean, when _is _a good time to reveal that your son is a freak with wings?"

"You're not a freak, Shawn." Shawn chuckled.

"Dad, that's the nicest thing you've said to me in a while." Henry stared. "Sorry."

"I'm assuming your...mother...doesn't know?"

"No, mom is as in the dark as you were." He scrubbed at his face with his hands, his wings shuffling. "God, she's going to flip out."

"You're going to tell her?"

"Well, you know. It's only fair that she does, too." He was _not _looking forward to that, even more so than to the conversation he was going to have to have with Juliet. Wait...no...he was dreading both about the same.

...fun times.

"So when you ran off after high school..."

"The Erasers were still following me. They just actually _found _me at that point. Cue flying - literally - across the country for a while to try and lose them. Eventually, I did, and I ended up back here. And you know the story from there." Henry nodded, and the two fell back into a semi-comfortable silence. Shawn, in that time, pulled on a windbreaker Gus had pulled out of one of the backpacks. The windbreaker almost seemed like it came straight out of a _Harry Potter _book; even though his wings were so large, the jacket just covered them, and it looked like Shawn never had them in the first place.

Shawn sat back down in his chair with a sigh.

"So, what now?" Henry asked, propping his head up on the table with his hand. Shawn shrugged.

"I dunno. My instincts are telling me to leave."

"But what do you _want _to do?"

"Stay." Shawn blurted before he could stop himself. He face-palmed. "Before moving in with you two, I was _so _okay with running across the world to stay a step ahead of the Erasers." He paused, and then chuckled. "Well, not _entirely _okay. I remember, one time I had a breakdown. Completely flipped my lid on the topic. I was only talked down from a fit with the promise of food." Henry stifled a chuckle.

"You _still _can only be kept from a fit with the promise of food."

"Gimme a break, I was eight!" Shawn whined. Well, _maybe _eight. What with his childhood, his exact age was pretty much a toss-up. His age had pretty much just been a guess.

With the thought of his less-than-ideal childhood, Shawn sobered quickly.

"More will be coming." Shawn said, once more breaking the semi-comfortable silence. "More than before. They know I'm here. For whatever reason, the School has made a comeback, and they want their old experiments back." _'Again.' _"Staying here isn't smart, but..."

"You want to." Henry finished for the other man, and he nodded.

"I do. But there will be _so many _coming. More than we can fight. More than our little group can fight." Shawn suddenly shot up. "That's it!" He yelled. He got up and darted out of the room. His father, sighing tiredly, trudged after him.

Shawn was in the living room, tearing apart the couch in search of the phone by the time Henry caught up. Lassiter and Gus watched on, bemused, as Henry found the phone - it was where it belonged, on the charging stand, so of course Shawn hadn't thought to look there - and handed it to his son.

He punched in a number, shook his head, and hit "End." He repeated the process four more times, before finally hitting "Talk."

"Shawn, what're you doing?" Gus asked.

"Calling in a favor." Shawn responded, tapping his foot impatiently as the phone rang. His face brightened up as the person on the other line answered. "El! I haven't heard your voice in _forever!" _A pause. "It's your little brother, El." An excited voice babbled on the other line, loud enough for the others to hear, but too quiet to hear distinct words. Shawn nodded along with the voice, even though the speaker couldn't see him. "Yep! Hey, El, your older sister wouldn't happen to me around, would she? I need to talk to her. It's urgent." A pause. "Okay. Bye, El! Oh, say hi to mamma M for me!"

Shawn winked at Lassiter, Gus, and Henry, smiling excitedly. Another voice, this one slightly deeper, sounded from the phone, and Shawn's expression evolved into one of pure joy.

"Hey." He said, and pulled the phone away from his ear as loud screaming came through.

_"IT'S ALL OVER THE NEWS, YOU IDIOT! YOU THINK I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO IDENTIFY YOUR HANDY WORK?! ARE YOU _TRYING _TO GET KILLED? GOD, CHILD, I HAVE HALF A MIND TO COME FIND YOU AND SMACK YOU UPSIDE THE FACE! So how are you doing, by the way? GOD YOU'RE SUCH AN IDIOT!" _

Shawn laughed as he placed the phone next to his ear again.

"Nice to hear from you too, sis. And it wasn't my fault, okay! I had a perfectly good reason to detonate a Big Boy over Santa Barbara!"

Another lengthy pause, and Shawn's smile fell from his face. He sighed.

"That's exactly what I was calling you about. I've been thinking...it's about time for a Flock reunion, wouldn't you say, Max?"

**Author's Note: **And that's it! Yep, that is the end of _"Avian-American." _Though, I'll have an author's note after this chapter if you wanna read it. Well, it's important, so you _should _read it.

Just for my own edification, can any of you guess who Shawn _really _is? It should be obvious, but I wanna know if anybody picked up on the obvious clues.

...shit, now I've gotta go through the fanfic, find the Flock-language, and put the translations at the bottom of the chapter(s). I made up most of that, you know!


	6. Author's Note

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

Hey, fanfic readers!

Sadly, yes, this _is _the end to this fanfic.

But!

I'm willing to turn this into a fully fleshed-out story, where the rest of the Flock comes in, and the backstory to this story is revealed.

But I'll only CONSIDER doing it if people want to read more.

**_So tell me if you want to know more._**

Here's just a bit of what I have ideas for if I continue this:

Adventure!

Fights!

Reunions!

The Flock!

Backstory!

Explanations!

Despereaux!

(Poorly-attempted) Humor!

Crime!

Lassiter-Shawn Arguments!

Shules Stuff(...eh...maybe. Not good at romance).

Despereaux!

The School!

Travel!

Witty Banter!

Flock Languages(most of which I made up)!

Despereaux!

And more!

Yeah, I like Despereaux, and I kinda want to put him in the story. Just because he's awesome.

So if you want me to turn this into a full-on story, then I will do just that.

**But you have to tell me. **

I don't want to write anything that nobody wants to read.

Anyway...

If this is the end of this fanfic, then thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. I liked writing it, and I'm happy I was finally able to write this headcannon or whatever that I've had in my head for a while.

I always wondered what would happen if the Flock separated for whatever reason (a reason I already have in my head) and grew up apart. And I got this little thought when watching a "Psych" marathon on Netflix.

Meh. XD

So, tell me if you want more.

If not, thanks for reading!

_~ Kitsune-242_

P.S. - I figured that Shawn was around 28 or 29 in this fic. I know he's older in the show at this point in time, but hey, his age was a plot point in my head for if the fic became a full-fledged one. Just a random tidbit for you. NO! No, a random tidbit is that Roday is 36. ...I know the ages of most of the main characters...don't know why...I know too much random crap, like how much they all make, their ages, and their birthdays. And their heights. ...I can't even remember where or when or how I learned this. ...you can stop listening to me now.


End file.
